


Out the Back Door, Goddamn -

by Palebluedot



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Charles You Slut, Charles is a Tease, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12-year Old Girl, M/M, Slow Burn, Thief!Charles, WIP, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 16:40:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2157762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which there's a chance meeting laced with ulterior motives, semi-illegal flirtatious antics, and a huge person-shaped question mark in Erik's life that he has no idea why he's putting up with.</p><p>Needless to say, it was confusing enough already before feelings got involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You’ve probably been told at some point - almost certainly by some trite motivational poster in the school counselor’s office - that “today is the first day of the rest of your life”. Well, actually, that’s not quite true. That implies that life is a collection of days, all rolled over onto one another, forming a nice, compact, easy-to-swallow pill that we’re all given exactly one of. The reality of the situation is much messier, I’m afraid. Far more scattered about.

The way it _really_ works is that each moment is the beginning of one life, and the end of another. We’re all infinite beaded strings of fresh starts; at any given moment, any one of us could choose to take our lives in a completely different direction, maybe even actually exercise that thing we call “free will”.

Unfortunately, we’re all really rather shit at this, and have instead developed a wonderfully uninteresting habit of retracing the comfortable little paths we’ve managed to carve out for ourselves. And so we continue to make the same old mistakes, wallow hopelessly in stale regrets, and all those bright new beginnings are wasted.

Luckily for us, occasionally, luck and circumstance will jostle that dusty, unused freedom out of the way, and mix things up. For example, in one comparatively insignificant yet interesting all the same tale of chance meetings, mischief, many, many spectacularly unwise decisions, sex, and a romance that was honestly never supposed to happen, Erik Lehnsherr found himself stumbling into the beginning of a completely different life (though he didn’t know it at the time) the second one Charles Xavier just happened to spot him on a street corner.

~~~

 _I’ll be damned,_ Charles thinks, _If that isn’t a beautiful suit._

It’s a neat, trim thing, a deep, soft grey, and fitted so wonderfully to its occupant that it must have been tailor-made. Expensive, too, from the look of it, the kind of expensive that would be a truly appalling example of the fruits of the wage gap if it didn’t look so damn _good_. Charles finds himself salivating over all those sharp, clean-pressed lines of fabric for so long that he has to physically tear his eyes away, which is remarkably bad form on his part.

 _Focus, Xavier, you’re supposed to be thinking about what’s inside the man’s pockets, not tucked away in his trousers,_ he reminds himself.

To be fair, Charles’ _completely_ rational reasons for appreciating the man’s attire aside, the suit really is a good sign. Expensive suits mean fat wallets, and fat wallets mean a very happy Charles in the near future.

If he can manage to stop ogling and do his job, that is.

But the fact that this particular attractive, well-clad stranger happens to be his next mark doesn’t mean that he can’t indulge his fantasies, at least a little. After all, the man doesn’t seem to be the sort to act upon charitable motivations, and he’s just big enough to make Charles especially wary of getting caught (though he’s quite quick when he needs to be), so really, he’s only left with one viable option: creating his own special brand of diversion.

And, if he’s to be honest, he can’t say he’s sorry about that at all.

~~~

When the stranger in the dark blue hoodie approaches him, Erik doesn’t even turn his head. The sidewalk is packed with pedestrians, and he’s never seen the man before in his life, so there’s simply no reason to acknowledge him.

But once he finds himself standing toe-to-toe with him, he becomes impossible to ignore. Suddenly, Erik is eye-level with slightly unwashed hair that has a certain, undeniable _flop_ to it, and once he glances further downward, he is positively _assaulted_ with almost comically large eyes. _Blue,_ he thinks, his mind absurdly and involuntarily filling to the brim with the word.

This thought immediately shifts into something more along the lines of _why in God’s name is this complete stranger’s hand on the back of my neck?_   He’s just about to do something reasonable, like take a step backwards, for instance, and proceed to ask the stranger just what in the _hell_ he thinks he’s doing when all that blue disappears under the slow slide of eyelids, the man in front of him tilts forward on his toes, and then there’s -

( _Logically, of course, it is impossible for two human beings to fall in love at first sight. Love is a rather complicated process, you know, and these things take time to cultivate, a good deal more time than storybooks would have us believe. However, it is exceedingly possible for a man’s curiosity to be piqued at the sight of a pretty face from across a crowded street, or..._ )

\- the feel of lips, entirely unfamiliar lips dragging against his own. And Erik’s eyes are blown wide open, because he’s not entirely certain that this is real, because a complete stranger _cannot_ be kissing him - after all, if he was, he’d surely be taking steps to remove himself from the situation immediately, and then deck the bastard so hard he’ll bounce when he hits the pavement.

But he’s not.

What he _is_ doing is noticing how the man’s fingers are carding through his hair like they belong there, and thinking that the air is positively crackling with pheromones - or would be, if such things were possible. And then all coherent thought is swept away from his mind as the stranger gently, so gently, traces the tip of his tongue against the seam of Erik’s mouth. It’s a request, a warm one, one that sends tiny buzzing thrills down Erik’s spine as it’s asked, flips his stomach around for no good reason at all, and because his head is spinning in both directions at once and the entire world has clearly gone mad, Erik grants it, parting his lips and letting the unknown in.

He doesn’t notice nimble fingers reaching around to his back pocket and slipping almost playfully inside, or the sudden following emptiness there. He’ll feel the strong desire to eviscerate himself later, but truth be told, he’s simply more than a little lost in this push and glide of lips and tongue that he never could have expected to experience with a stranger as he impatiently waited for the crosswalk light to turn green.

He does notice when everything grinds to a halt, and the gleam in the man’s eye that Erik doesn’t understand (but will soon), and when, as quickly as he’d come, a man he never meant to kiss back weaves his way back into the ceaseless flow of people walking down the street that, if you were drunk enough, might perhaps remind you of a river.

It’s not until he’s been standing alone, fingers on his lips, for several minutes that he notices that the bastard’s pinched his wallet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trash but the title is taken from Miss Jackson, by Panic! At The Disco. ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUc_jXBD9DU))
> 
> And the actual fic is inspired by the last AU on this tumblr post. ([x](http://aerynlallaboso.tumblr.com/post/91249250556/reached-for-the-last-snack-item-at-the-same-time))
> 
> So, this is my first multi-chapter fic, and I'm pretty excited about it! But I'm gonna be honest with y'all, I have absolutely no idea how often it's gonna be updated. School is starting soon, which wreaks a good deal of havoc on a hope for a regular posting schedule, but I can assure you that I do intend to see this through. I have the plot all planned out, it's just...writing it. You understand.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

On a list of desirable places in which to spend an evening, Erik would place the West End Central Police Station near the very bottom, above perhaps only a shallow, roadside grave - and the DVLA, obviously.

 _Christ, the DVLA, I’ll have to pay a visit to that hellhole for a replacement license if they can’t sort out this mess,_ he thinks miserably. The last thing he wants to do right now is deal with long lines, that infuriating fluorescent lighting, and _people_ , asking him _questions_ , shoving _forms_ at him -

“Mr. Lehnsherr? You’ll need to fill out this form, and then I’ve got just a few additional questions for you.” The police officer across the cluttered desk has the audacity to _smile_ as she says this. She’s the friendly sort, apparently.

_Damn everything to the seventh layer of hell._

Resigned to his fate, Erik wearily takes the damned paper from her and begins the horrendous task of checking all those rows and rows of meaningless boxes. He could just _tell_ her all this, save them both from this bureaucratic nightmare, but -

“It’s for our records,” Officer MacTaggart (or at least he thinks that’s her name - he honestly hadn’t been paying her much mind when she introduced herself, and doesn’t care nearly enough to ask again) says, with a seemingly sympathetic expression. “I know it’s annoying, but without a paper trail, nothing can get done.”

Erik doesn’t deign to respond, opting to instead finish the paperwork in silence, navigating through the meaningless tedium as efficiently as possible. When, at last, he’s reached the end, he wordlessly sets the form on the desk.

MacTaggart shoots him another smile as she picks it up, and immediately begins to read everything he’s _just written_ right back to him. “Let’s see...assailant was male, unarmed, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, small in stature, brown hair, blue eyes….” For reasons unknown, her eyebrows perk up a bit at that, but she says nothing. She picks up her notepad and pen, and returns her attention to Erik. “Now, Mr. Lehnsherr, can you tell me if there was anything unusual about the incident? Something not on the form that you think we should know?”

 _...Fuck._ Erik had rather hoped to avoid that particular aspect of the ordeal.

His hesitation is apparently obvious, because MacTaggart feels the need to speak up again. “Remember, anything you can tell me will be helpful, and the more specific, the better.”

 _Oh, just get on with it. It's not like the day can get any more hellish._ "Well,” he begins, suddenly rather uncharacteristically embarrassed. “He did...kiss me. Presumably to, ah, divert my attention from my back pocket.”

MacTaggart drops her pen.

Then, slowly, her face spreads into a wild, open-mouthed grin. Before Erik can ask her what sort of madness has suddenly overtaken her, she cuts him off. “Mr. Lehnsherr, I could kiss you!”

Erik is now officially confused, and more than a little alarmed at her choice of expression. “...And why is that, precisely?”

“I know _exactly_ who we’re looking for,” she says, triumph blazing in her eyes. “ _Charles Xavier_.”

Now, Erik is reasonably confident in the local police’s competence, but _that_ level of proficiency seems highly suspect. “How could you possibly - ”

She abruptly stands and crosses to the filing cabinet in the corner of her office and starts thumbing through it with a downright smug enthusiasm. “Oh, believe me, _I know._ The guy’s infamous around here, we’ve got _dozens_ of similar robberies all attributed to him - _aha_!” Positively glowing, she sits back down, and positively gleefully holds up a file for him to see. “And there could very well be even more victims out there, and they're just too embarrassed to report the theft, given the nature of his little signature move, and all.”

“That’s quite a file,” Erik remarks - the thing’s easily the width of a small binder.

“Ohh, yeah. It’s something of a personal project. I started putting it together after - well, after he got _me_ ,” MacTaggart says, cheeks coloring just enough to become noticeable.

Erik chooses not to comment on that. “If you’re so certain of who he is and what he’s done, why hasn’t he been put away? Isn’t that what you people are supposed to do?”

MacTaggart grimaces. “We’ve tried. He got off on a technicality - I had a bad fall and suffered some mild, _temporary_ memory loss soon after the incident, and his lawyer managed to convince the judge that my testimony was unreliable, so she threw the whole case out. Worst day of my _life_. I’d been after the guy for two years by that point.”

“And now?”

“Four.” Erik notices that she’s gripping that file rather more tightly than she had been a moment ago. “He’s infuriatingly hard to catch, and even harder to hold onto, and we can’t afford to pour too many resources into a small-time crook like him. But,” she continues, looking rather like a young mother who has _finally_ succeeded in getting her quarrelsome toddler bathed and put to bed. “Here’s where it gets good: _he’s here in the station_. Right now. And if you could identify him as the guy who took your wallet, we might be able to reopen the case against him - assuming you want to press charges, of course.”

Erik’s following smile is nothing short of predatory. Suddenly, the police station doesn’t seem like such a terrible place to be. “I can think of nothing I’d like better.”

~~~

The cell is reasonably spacious, as cells go, and if the dimly flickering fluorescent lights overhead were to brighten, you would find it quite clean. The grate on the doors wide-set, but the bars are thick, and make their presence and purpose exceedingly clear. It may not be a high-security prison, but the holding tank is a cage just the same.

Erik has never cared much for cages, but he takes an almost tangible satisfaction at seeing this particular one’s sole occupant. He’s perched lightly on the edge of the bench, back so straight he might have been wound in place with cogs and springs, but he is not sitting stiffly. His legs are not high enough off the cracked cement floor to swing freely, so they remain still, yet there’s that same carefree energy about him. Like he’s certain he could fly to freedom at any moment. The fact that he is very much at the mercy of two people he has personally and severely wronged does nothing less this effect. If anything, the spark dancing about him jumps and crackles with yet more verve for seeing them approach.

Beside Erik, Officer MacTaggart is virtually vibrating with anticipation. It’s glaringly obvious that she’s already reveling in the sense of satisfaction that’s sure to wash over her in the next few minutes, to the point where Erik turns away from the criminal in front of him to actually speak to her. “Enjoying yourself?” he asks drily.

“Oh, yes,” she beams. “I couldn’t believe my luck, I’ve been chasing this guy for _years_ , and then he was brought right into the station! Just down the hall from my office - and for, get this: sleeping on a park bench, of all things! And then _you_ turned up - ”

Erik supposes she continues to gush her good fortune, but he can’t say he hears a word of it.

_Sleeping on a park bench…_

His eyes automatically snap back to the smirking man whose name he’s only recently learned is Charles Xavier. There has been no change in the cast of characters. He’s still the same lowlife who robbed him and is showing no signs of remorse, but the tone of the thing has become oddly muddled now that Erik knows the roof of the police station is the only one that’s been over his head all night.

Without warning, the babbling police officer and the thief’s taunting, too-bright eyes fall away, and Erik is a boy again, shivering and half-starved, curled in on himself as tightly as the inhospitable dimensions of the old wooden bench will allow. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to force his mind to switch itself off so he might find asylum from his reality in sleep, and then he is once again in London. He finds himself to be warm and well-fed, standing in front of a dimly-lit cell, and staring down a homeless man.

 _A thief,_ he reminds himself. _Who plucked what was yours right out from your back pocket as though he had some right to it._ But that does him no good, because how many times had Erik taken what he needed to survive from the open-air stalls of vendors on the streets of Düsseldorf, from the unguarded handbags of well-dressed women? His tailored suit feels as though it’s tightening around him. Had he so easily forgotten what his life had been like without it?

“Mr. Lehnsherr?” Officer MacTaggart looks mildly concerned. Erik blinks and wonders how long he’d been silent. “I said, can you identify Charles Xavier as the man who robbed you?”

Erik focused once more on the man in the cage before him. Those ridiculous blue eyes stare back at him. They carry an undeniable arrogance, the sort of arrogance Erik would normally take great pleasure in crushing to dust under his heel.

But in that moment, he makes a choice that would be unusual for any human being, and especially so for a man like Erik Lehnsherr - to make an exception. In this particular case, that exception is a show of pity. Or perhaps it’s more like mercy, or even empathy - all are equally uncharacteristic. When he opens his mouth to speak, he’s not entirely sure if the words belong to a wealthy man or a shivering boy (or if it matters at all), just that he will almost certainly regret them. 

He says them anyway. “As much as I would love to be able to say otherwise, I’m afraid I’ve never seen this man before in my life.”

There is a silence then, the same sort of silence that might follow the _thunk_ and quiver of a knife thrown into a wooden tabletop in a crowded room, inches from a bargoer’s fingers.

Erik’s gaze is still fixed on Xavier’s face. From behind the thick metal bars, his face is still positively, _infuriatingly_ cocky, but there’s the quickest quirk of his eyebrows immediately following Erik’s blatant lie. He’s surprised him. This is a good deal more satisfying than it perhaps ought to be. If he had been properly paying attention, Erik would have noticed that he very much wanted to have the chance to surprise Charles again, to utterly bemuse him, throw him for a loop like he’s never been thrown in his life, to send him reeling the same way he’d sent Erik reeling on that street corner - but long before he can put it all together, Erik once again finds him distracted by the officer’s anxious voice.

“Mr. Lehnsherr, are you _certain_?” It’s clear from the intonement in her voice that she sees right through him, and is trying desperately to give him an out.

A sane man would take it, but Erik doesn’t claim for a moment that what he’s doing is in any way sane. “Officer MacTaggart, I have no doubt that Charles Xavier is a thief and a vagrant, but he’s not your man.”

The officer loses her composure completely then, which Erik suspects is a rare occurrence for her. She buries her face in her hands and murmurs what sounds like “Oh God, not _another_ one.”

Xavier, on the other hand, carries the energy of a man with a sizable spring in his step, despite having remained seated for the entire exchange. When Erik hears him speak for the first time since he stole a kiss and his wallet both, his tone is almost chastising. “Now _really_ , Officer, how many times must we go through this? I didn’t steal anything, now may I go? I promise to find someplace more befitting a proper citizen to sleep tonight.” His eyes are wide with innocence but the quirk in his lips is whispering _catch me if you can_ , but it’s over, and Officer MacTaggart is smart enough to know when she’s been beaten.

“Fine,” she says, flat and resigned. “Fine. You know where to go.” Her key turns in the lock, she pulls the cell door open, and watches with pursed lips as Xavier springs lightly to his feet and strolls across the threshold to freedom, throwing a flirty little wink at Erik as he passes. Erik thinks he might hear him whistling as he walks away, but MacTaggart leaves him exactly no time to be sure, as she briskly starts off in the opposite direction, leaving him no choice but to follow. “Come on,” she says, all business. Cold. “Looks like we’ve got a little more work to do after all.”

~~~

It ends up taking just shy of half and hour for Erik to be able to leave the station. She hadn’t let him go easily - and when he finally managed to get away, it had only been with the officer’s phone number in his pocket “in case he remembered _anything_ else.”

He won’t be calling.

The sun had been setting when he sat down at MacTaggart’s desk for the first time, and it’s completely dark when he steps back outside. Noticeably colder, too. The stars are beginning to slowly burn their way through the blackness, but Erik doesn’t see them. He’s just trying to remember where he’s parked the bloody car. Only when he hears the voice behind him does he pay any mind to anything but the sidewalk directly in front of him.

“From what I know about you, I’m surprised you didn’t turn me in.”

Erik turns around, and finds himself face to face with Charles Xavier - who’d been freed half an hour ago. He’d been _waiting_ there for Erik. This can mean nothing good.

“What do you know about me?” he asks, coming off as far less accusatory than he had intended.

Xavier just smiles at him, and it’s the closest Erik has ever seen him come to sincere. “Everything.”

Before Erik can ask what the _hell_ he means by that, Xavier’s fingers deftly dip into his pocket and produce Erik’s wallet. He flips it open and makes a show of thumbing through its contents. “I know your name is Erik Lehnsherr, you’re 31 years old, according to your license, you carry a rather excessive amount of cash, as well as - dear me, _five_ credit cards, those should prove useful - and,” his eyes flicker upwards to meet Erik’s. “You have green eyes, which, I have to say, are _stunning_.” He throws Erik another wink then, and, with the flourish of a man out to prove a point, clicks Erik’s wallet shut and stows it safely back in his sweatshirt pocket. “And I could go on. There’s a whole wealth of information in here, my friend, and I look forward to making good use of it.”

“I’m not your _friend_ ,” Erik snaps.

“Aren’t you, though?” Xavier cocks his head ever so slightly and grins up at him, like he’s having the time of his life. “You just lied to the police to save me from jail time. Isn’t that the sort of thing friends do for one another?”

Erik has no response to that, but Xavier doesn’t seem to care. “Another thing friends do is to talk to each other - so I’ve a question for you. Whyever did you let me go?”

There’s a challenge painted across Xavier’s face, and Erik intends to meet it. But there is no way he’ll be answering that particular question truthfully. There’s no reason to spill his life’s story to this criminal. Besides, Xavier’s clearly been taking great joy in playing Erik like a fiddle since the moment they met, and it’s only fair that Erik has his turn as well.

“Well, it was a damn good kiss,” Erik starts, allowing himself the barest hint of a smile. “And I pay my whores.”

Xavier laughs at that, nose wrinkling up, and for a moment, he looks almost innocent. The effect quickly evaporates the second he speaks again. “Well, you’ve certainly paid me well….It might just be that the next time won’t cost you a penny.” And with that, he turns smartly on his heels and begins to melt back into the darkness. “

Where are you going?” Erik calls after him, before he can stop himself.

Xavier doesn't turn his head. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” 

And Lord help him, Erik really would like to know exactly that.

Somewhere above his head, and somewhere below it, too, the stars continue to burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I get a hell yeah for excessive direct references to canon
> 
> Also, my knowledge of London police procedure is exceedingly sketchy at best, so if you spot any glaring errors that are gonna keep you up at night, feel free to let me know.


End file.
